Price on request

Inscribed l..r.: Madeley Manor Sep. 7. `42

Black chalk and pencil

25.7 by 36.2 cm., 10 by 14 ¼ in.

 

Provenance:

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 12^th January 1966, lot 2, one of a folio;

Private Collection until 2014

 

Callow recalls in his autobiography:

`During the next year, 1842, my pupils increased in number… Miss Crewe, a sister of Lord Crewe, was also a pupil, and I went to give her some lessons at Madeley Manor, in Staffordshire, the seat of Mrs. Cunliffe Offley, the aunt of Miss Crewe, with whom she was staying. I unfortunately caught a severe cold on the last day of my visit through sitting on the damp grass, so I decided to go to the South Coast to recuperate’ (William Callow – an Autobiography, edited by H.M. Cundall, 1908, pp.87-88).

 

A view of Madeley by Callow was sold at Sotheby’s on 19^th November 1992, lot 110 and another was with Leger Galleries in 1987.

 

Price on request

Signed lower left: W. Callow

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour

22.5 by 31 cm., 9 by 12 ¼ in.

 

Provenance:

With the Fine Art Society, London, November 1957;

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, 12th June 2003, lot 157, where bought by the father of the present owner

Price on request

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Inscribed lower right: Aix Juil 29

Watercolour over pencil heightened with white on blue-grey paper

13.5 by 23.3cm., 5 1/4 by 9 inches

 

In 1831, Callow shared a studio with Thomas Shotter Boys in Paris and he remained there for ten years. The present watercolour dates from Callow?s first sketching tour in France in the summer of 1836. He set off from Paris on 6th June with a German friend called Soherr and travelled along the Loire and then continued south down the Rhone. His diary entry for the 29th July reads:

 

?I was to leave by coach at six for Aix, but fell asleep again, and did not wake until a few minutes before that hour. Hurried into my clothes, but found the coach had already started, so got a man to carry my knapsack and ran after it, catching it up about a mile out of the town as it was ascending a hill; arrived at Aix at 9 A.M. Intended to make some sketches, but was unable on account of the heat. I had decided to take the coach to Avignon, but it was so full that I went by another one to Orgon? (see William Callow ? An Autobiography, 1908, p.55-56).

 

This drawing dates, therefore, from his few hours in Aix. Callow draws the city from the north with the tower of the Cathedral of St Sauveur in the foreground

 

Provenance:

London, Fine Art Society;

Sir Adrian Holman, K.B.E. (1895-1974);

By descent until 2009

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Signed lower right and inscribed lower centre in pencil: East Lyn Valley/… Aug.t 27th - 1847

Watercolour over pencil heightened with scratching out

25 by 37.1 cm., 9 ¾ by 14 ½ in.

Lynmouth and Lynton are adjoining villages in north Devon straddling a gorge where the East and West Lynn rivers meet.  This on-the-spot sketch dates from Callow’s visit to Somerset and North Devon in the late summer of 1847. His exhibits at the Old Watercolour Society in 1848 include a view of a watermill on the West Lynn river and views of Lynmouth and Ilfracombe. For a view of Dunster Castle recorded in the collection of Mrs Nelson, see H.M. Cundall (ed.), William Callow – an Autobiography, 1908, ill. facing p.144).

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Signed lower left: W.Callow

Watercolour with touches of pencil and scratching out

22.1 by 31 cm., 8 ? by 12 ? in.

 

Provenance:

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, 11^th July 1990, lot 23, where bought by the present owner

 

This watercolour dates stylistically from the early 1840s and is likely to be a view of a French harbour. Callow moved to Paris in 1831 where he shared a studio with Thomas Shotter Boys. He became a successful drawing master in Paris and travelled widely on the Continent before returning to London in 1841 when he was elected a member of the Old Watercolour Society.

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Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour

25.7 by 37 cm., 10 by 14 ½ in.

 

Callow visited Rouen on a number of occasions. He passed through the town on his way to Paris in 1829 and it was the starting point of his first walking tour, along the banks of the Seine, in May 1835. He returned with his friend and fellow artist Charles Bentley in the autumn of 1836. He also visited the town on his tour of Normandy in 1854. This studio work dates from 1863.

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signed with initials lower right

watercolour over pencil

14.7 x 20.6cm., 5 ? x 8 ? inches

 

Provenance:

Anonymous sale, Christie?s, 14^th July 1987, lot 219

Private Collection, Norfolk

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Signed with initials lower left and inscribed lower right: Marseille Juil 28

Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour on grey-blue paper

13.4 by 23.2 cm., 5 ¼ by 9 in.

 

Provenance:

With the Fine Art Society, London, 1972

 

This dates from Callow’s tour of the south of France in the summer of 1836. His diary entry for 28^th July is as follows: `My twenty-fourth birthday. On arrival at Marseilles went to bed till 8 A.M. Visited the quays and made a number of sketches of merchantmen coming into harbour’ (see William Callow – an Autobiography, 1908, p. 55).

 

Two other watercolours of Marseille, also dated 28^th July 1836, were sold at Sotheby’s on 24^th November 2005, lots 159 and 160 and a large watercolour `Entrance to the Port of Marseilles’, which was exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water-colours in 1838, sold at Christie’s on 2^nd December 2014, lot 194 for £23,000 hammer price. 

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Signed lower centre: Wm Callow

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour

28.8  by 45.6 cm., 11 ½ by 18 in.

 

Provenance:

With Vicar Brothers, 12 Old Bond St., London, 1947

 

This studio work may be based on sketches drawn in the summer of 1835. Callow left Paris in May 1835 and walked from Rouen along the Seine to Le Havre before taking the steamer to Southampton. `After touring on foot round the Isle of Wight we went to Portsmouth, and walked to Winchester, making a large number of sketches on the way, and finally took the coach to London. This tour proved to be a very pleasant one, and in this manner I was enabled to make sketches of many interesting places unfrequented by travellers’ (see William Callow – an Autobiography, 1908, p. 29).

 

This is a view of Winchester from the banks of the river Itchen to the north of the city. Winchester Cathedral is in the centre with Winchester Palace on the hill to the right. The Palace was later converted into military barracks. Callow only exhibited three Winchester views – stylistically this is likely to be the picture exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water-colours in 1856 as `Winchester.’

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Signed and dated 1863 lower left and inscribed verso: No 8/Falls of the Rhine/at Schaffhausen

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and stopping out

56.6 by 84.6 cm., 22 ½ by 33 ½ in.

 

Exhibited:

London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, Summer 1863

 

The Falls at Schaffhausen are the largest waterfall in Europe, located in northern Switzerland near the town of the same name. They are 75 feet high and 450 feet wide. Callow visited them at least once in the autumn of 1838 on his first tour of Switzerland. From Zurich he took a steamer to Rappenschwyl then went by coach to Lake Wallenstadt. From Ragatz he took a coach to Rorschak on Lake Constance then a steamer to the town of Constance. `On the following day posted to Schaffhausen and saw the Falls of the Rhine. Then quitted with great regret the mountain scenery of Switzerland and posted to Freiburg, where I took the coach to Strasbourg’ (see William Callow – an Autobiography, 1908, p. 69-70). John Murray’s popular guidebook to the Alps described the falls as follows: `[From a balcony over the fall], covered with the spray, the traveller may enjoy the full  grandeur of this hell of waters; and it only by this close proximity, amidst the tremendous roar and the uninterrupted rush of the river…. that a true notion can be formed of the stupendous nature of the cataract’ (John Murray, Hand-Book for Travellers in Switzerland and the Alps of Savoy of Piedmont, 1846, p.21).

 

The Falls were a favourite subject for J.M.W. Turner who visited them in 1802, 1836 and 1841. Callow was acquainted with Turner and here has chosen the same viewpoint as in Turner’s 1833 engraving for `The Keepsake’.

 

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Signed lower right: William Callow/1866 and again verso: No.3/Venice from near the St Giorgios & grand Canal/by/William Callow R.W.S./The Firs/G.t Missenden

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour

29.4 by 76.5 cm., 11 ½ by 30 in.

 

Provenance:

Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 16^th March 1982, lot 142;

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 14^th April 1994, lot 521;

Private Collection, UK

 

Exhibited:

London, Society of Painters in Water-Colours, 1866, no.4

Callow first visited Venice in 1840 when his visit coincided with Turner and they were staying in the same hotel. Callow wrote in his diary:

`The next time I met Turner was at Venice, at the Hotel Europa, where we sat opposite at meals and entered into conversation. One evening whilst I was enjoying a cigar in a gondola I saw Turner in another one sketching San Giorgio, brilliantly lit up by the setting sun. I felt quite ashamed of myself idling away my time whilst he was hard at work so late’ (William Callow – an Autobiography, edited by H.M. Cundall, 1908, pp.66-67). Venice was Callow’s favourite city and his Venetian views are his most sought after pictures.

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Inscribed with title verso

Watercolour over pencil

23 by 34.5 cm., 9 by 13 ½ in.

 

Provenance:

Manning Gallery, London

 

Dunster Castle sits above the village of the same name on the north Somerset coast near Minehead. Originally an eleventh century Norman castle, it has been extensively rebuilt and remodelled over the years and is now a National Trust property. For another view of Dunster Castle, dated 1847, see William Callow - An Autobiography, edited by H.M. Cundall, 1908, ill. opp. p.144.

 

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Signed lower left

Watercolour over pencil heightened with scratching out, stopping out and gum arabic

227 x 303 mm., 9 x 12 in.

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Signed with monogram lower left and inscribed lower right: Tours and dated June 18th 1836
Watercolour over pencil heightened with white on blue-grey paper
13.7 by 23.2cm., 5 1/4 by 9 inches

In 1831, Callow shared a studio with Thomas Shotter Boys in Paris and he remained in the city for ten years. The present watercolour dates from Callow's first sketching tour in France in the summer of 1836. He left Paris on 6th June with a German friend called Soherr and travelled along the Loire and then to the south. On 17th June he set off from Amboise arriving in Tours the same day. His diary entry for 18th June reads: `Did a little sketching, but we could find nothing very interesting. We were detained in Tours for our washing till seven that evening. They arrived back in Paris on 16th August having travelled about 1,700 miles and spent only ?20. A more finished version of this view dated 1839 is in the Castle Museum, Nottingham (see Jan Reynolds, William Callow, 1980, pl.22)

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signed lower centre: W. Callow

watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic

30.8 by 42cm., 12 by 16 ? inches

 

Provenance:

With the Fine Art Society, London, 1950s

 

This is likely to date from shortly after Callow?s first tour of Switzerland and Germany, when he visited Martigny, in August 1838. Callow was living in Paris at the time and took a diligence from there, in the company of a Mr Forman, to Dijon before continuing to Geneva and up to Chamonix and Mont Blanc. He then proceeded to Aosta and the hospital of St Bernard at St R?my from where he descended to Martigny (see William Callow ? an Autobiography, edited by H.M. Cundall, 1908, pp.67-71). He then continued east across Switzerland then north to Bonn from where he returned to Paris via Cologne and Brussels.

 

This watercolour is almost certainly a studio work based on on-the-spot sketches. Two such views of Martigny, both dated 22nd August, are recorded ? one in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Jan Reynolds, William Callow R.W.S., 1980, ill. no.20) and the other was with Spinks in the 1980s.

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Signed lower left: Wm Callow 1856

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour

32.7 by 47.6 cm., 12 ? by 18 ? inches

 

Provenance:

With Walker?s Galleries, London, 1936;

With the Fine Art Society, London, 1970;

Anonymous sale, Christie?s, 21st March 1989, lot 117;

With Spinks, London, where bought by the present owner, circa 1990

 

Exhibited:

London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1856

 

This is a view looking south at the Rialto bridge from near the Palazzo Civran. To the right of the bridge is the Palazzo Camerlenghi with the tower of the church of San Giacomo di Rialto beyond.  Callow first visited Venice in 1840 when his visit coincided with Turner and they were staying in the same hotel. He returned on his honeymoon in 1846. The present watercolour will be a studio work based on on-the-spot sketches.

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Inscribed l.r.: Dinant/Augt 30\1867

Pencil on buff paper

274 x 380 mm., 10 ¾ x 15 in.

 

Provenance:

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 12^th January 1966, lot 2:

Private Collection until 2014

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Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour

22 x 32 cm., 8 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches

 

Provenance:

Anonymous sale, Sotheby?s, 17th November 1988, lot 125, sold for ?1,900

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Signed centre left: Wm Callow and inscribed verso: No 7/Water Mill/On the Seine

Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour

18.9 by 35.5 cm., 7 ½ by 14 inches

 

Provenance:

By descent in the family of the artist until at least 1927;

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 11^th July 1991, lot 186;

Private Collection, London until 2013

 

Literature:

Frank L. Emmanuel, William Callow, Walker’s Quarterly, 1927, p.43

 

Callow drew various views of a watermill at St Ouen including one dated July 1831 (Rhode Island School of Design, see Jan Reynolds, William Callow, 1980, pl. 7). Stylistically the present work dates from the late 1830s.

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signed lower right and inscribed verso: No 6/Campsie Glen

watercolour over pencil heightened with gum arabic

35.8 by 27.2cm., 14 by 10 3/4 inches

 

Exhibited:

London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, Winter 1862

 

Campsie Glen is near Lennoxtown in East Dunbartonshire. It is an area of great natural beauty, famous for its picturesque series of thundering waterfalls and rocky pools, and was opened to the public in 1785 for the benefit of local industrial workers

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Signed with initials lower left and inscribed: Reinhardsbrunn/Entrance Gate./August 27th/1863

Watercolour over pencil

355 x 253 mm., 14 x 9 ¾ in.

This is one of a series of watercolours by Callow of royal palaces drawn in the summer of 1863. Prince Albert had recently died and Callow records in his autobiography:

‘.....I thought that some drawings of Coburg, Rheinhardsbrunn and other royal palaces with which he had been connected would be of interest to the public, so I wrote to the Duchess Augustus of Saxe-Coburg, formerly my pupil, Princess Clementine, asking her to obtain permission for me to sketch at these palaces, which she readily obtained. In August 1863 we arrived at Coburg.... (at the Palace) I was welcomed by the Duke and Duchess and their daughters, to whom I showed my sketches. The Duchess requested me to leave them with her, as she was going to Rosenau to see Queen Victoria...'

Callow was summoned to see the Queen at the Chateau, where he was ‘duly presented, but Her Majesty graciously said, ‘I remember Mr Callow perfectly.' After looking through my sketches, and expressing her admiration for them, the Queen told me of a number of places of interest which I ought to visit and sketch.' (H.M. Cundall, William Callow - An Autobiography, 1908, p.121).

The Queen commissioned eight watercolours from Callow, including a view of Coburg, for which he was paid £105 on 22nd January 1864.

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Signed lower left: Wm/Callow/1874

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and stopping out

33.8 by 48.6 cm., 13 ? by 19 inches

 

Provenance:

London Society of Painters in Water-colours, Summer 1874

 

Drawn from the southern banks of the River Moselle, this view looks towards the Ehrenbreitstein fortress situated over 350 feet above the Rhine River. The Fortress, one of the largest in Europe at the time, was built by the Prussian Army between 1817 and 1832, after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, as part of the defence of Koblenz.

 

The twin towers of the Church of St Castor in Klobenz can be seen on the north bank, situated at the confluence of the two rivers.

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signed lower centre

watercolour over pencil

16.3 by 25.2cm, 6 1/4 by 9 3/4 inches

 

This originates from an album which included a similar Callow watercolour dated 1842. The landscape and the style of the architecture suggests this shows a town on the Italian Riviera.

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signed lower right and dated 1849

watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour

33 by 48.6cm, 13 by 19 inches

 

The Neustadt is the main street in Innsbruck and is now known as Maria-Theresienstrasse. To the left is the Spitalkirche built in its present form in 1701-05 and beyond is the City Tower built in the mid fifteenth century. The monument nearest us is the Annasaule or Column of St. Anne which was built to thank St Anne for the liberation of Innsbruck from Bavarian troops in July 1703.

 

Callow visited Innsbruck on his ten week honeymoon in the summer of 1846. Callow and his new wife Harriet left Ramsgate on 3rd July and travelled down through Germany from Cologne to Munich then across to Austria. They then went south to Trento, Verona, Vicenza arriving in Venice in mid August where they spent at least four days, returning via Fluelen and Lucerne to England.

 

Provenance:

A.R. Baines, C.B.E., Bramhope, Leeds, bought from the Fine Art Society, February 1955;

By descent until 2008

 

Exhibited:

London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1849, no.199

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Signed lower right: W Callow 1836

Watercolour heightened with bodycolour, scratching out and stopping out

17.7 by 25.2 cm., 7 by 10 in.

 

The present watercolour dates from 1836 and was presumably drawn in Paris from earlier sketches. He records visiting Windsor as early as 1829: `In 1829 my father was superintending some repairs at Windsor Castle for King George IV., which gave me an opportunity of seeing all over it. I was delighted with everything I saw, and made a few small sketches there’ (William Callow - an Autobiography, 1908, p.6). Eton is just over the Thames from Windsor so he could easily have a preliminary sketch then.

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Signed lower right: Wm Callow 1894

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour

33.9 by 24.7 cm., 13 ¼ by 9 ½ in.

 

This may be the work exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water-colours in the winter of 1894 as `Near the Village of Halton, Bucks.'

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Signed with initials lower right: WC/Angouleme Juin 28. ‘36 Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour on blue-grey paper 22.7 by 26.5 cm., 8 ¾ by 10 ½ in.   Provenance: Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 1st March 1977, lot 163   This dates from Callow’s first sketching tour to Southern France in the summer of 1836. Callow set off from Paris on 6th June with a German friend called Soherr and travelled along the Loire and then to the South. They arrived in Angouleme on the evening of 26th June exhausted after a long walk in the hot sun. They slept most of the day of the 27th but Callow records in his diary: `In the evening we went on the ramparts, which surround the town; saw a lovely sunset and the full moon rise. In the interesting old town are some towers remaining of an old castle, and the ancient cathedral has some curious sculptures on the exterior’ (see William Callow – an Autobiography, 1908, pp.42). This sketch dates from the morning of the 28th June before they set off for Barbezieux. Callow writes: `The weather piping hot…. Made some sketches in the broiling sun’ (op.cit., p. 43).   A smaller fully finished studio work of the same view by Callow, dated 1836, was sold at Christie’s on 5th June 2007, lot 130 for £10,200.

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Inscribed upper right: Didlington High Oaks 1882/Aug 16

Watercolour over pencil

25.4 by 17.8 cm., 10 by 7 in.

 

Provenance:

With Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, circa 1940s

 

Didlington Hall was in the possession of the Wilson family until 1846. Charles Loftus in his memoirs `My Life from 1815-1849’ records visiting Colonel Wilson at Didlington Hall where there was a heronry in the `high oaks at the back of the Hall’ ((see William Callow – an Autobiography, 1908, p.140). By the time of Callow’s visit in 1882, the house was in the possession of William Amherst Tyssen-Amherst (1835-1909), the well known collector and bibliophile. He was created Baron Amherst in 1892 and is best known for his Egyptian collections and patronage of a young Howard Carter. Didlington Hall was requisitioned for the use of the Army during World War II which left it beyond repair and it was pulled down in the early 1950s.

 

An undated view of `Didlington Castle’ by Callow was exhibited at the Walker Galleries, London in April 1927.

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Signed lower left: Wm Callow/1880

Watercolour over pencil heightened with stopping out and gum arabic

22.1 by 45.1 cm., 8 ¾ by 17 ¾ in.

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Signed lower right: Wm. Callow/1882

Watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolour and scratching out

34.7 by 50.3 cm., 13 ½ by 19 ¾ in.

 

Provenance:

With Thos. Agnew & Sons, Liverpool

 

Exhibited:

London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, Summer 1882

 

Callow was one of the best known topographical artists of the nineteenth century with a career spanning over seventy years. The son of a builder, he was employed as an eleven year old by the artist Theodore Fielding. In 1829 he went to work in Paris where he subsequently shared a studio with Thomas Shotter Boys and came under the influence of Bonington. He built up a successful teaching practice there in the early 1830s among the French nobility with his pupils including the Duc de Nemours and the tow children of King Louis Philippe.

 

In 1838 he was elected an Associate of the Old Watercolour Society which led to his return to England in 1841. In London he again became a very successful drawing master and began to exhibit widely. From the 1830s he travelled widely in Europe producing sketches which he would later use to produce, frequently large-scale, studio works which became greatly in demand. The present watercolour dates 1882 when he was seventy and still taking pupils. He exhibited at the Old Watercolour Society until his death in 1908 at the age of 96.

 

He first visited Italy and Florence in the autumn of 1840 and the present watercolour will date from sketches made on that visit. His diary records his progress from Milan to Venice and then on to the Padua, Ferrara and Bologna: `The next day we started in a vettura in company with two others for Florence, having been drawn by oxen at a snail’s pace across the Appennines. We slept at a solitary habitation, Albergo del Nolta, in sight of Monte di Fo, and after two days’ travelling at Florence. Here we remained for four days sketching all the wondering buildings. Forman being obliged to return to Paris, I proceeded by myself in a vettura to Rome’ (William Callow – an Autobiography, 1908, pp.77-78).

 

This is a view of Florence from the south-west taken from near the thirteenth century church of San Miniato al Monte. The bridge over the river Arno is the famous Ponte Vecchio with the largest of the visible towers being part of the Palazzo Vecchio on the Piazza della Signoria.